On that point about the Obama administration's focus on women's jobs, remember that Obama's original idea was to have a stimulus that would produce jobs for men — who "need to do something that fits with how they define themselves as men":

As the room chewed over the non-PC phrase “women’s work,” trying to square the senator’s point with their analytical models, [Alan] Krueger—who was chief economist at the Department of Labor in the mid-1990s at the tender age of thirty-four—sat there silently, thinking that in all his years of studying men and muscle, he had never used that term. But Obama was right. Krueger wondered how his latest research on happiness and well-being might take into account what Obama had put his finger on: that work is identity, that men like to build, to have something to show for their sweat and toil.

“Infrastructure,” he blurted out. “Rebuilding infrastructure.”

And then what happened? How was Obama — with his concern about manhood — swallowed up and enfolded within the Party of Women?

Interesting to see his desire to build masculine pride by giving men things to build, because men like to build... and now, in 2012, to find him bumbling and mumbling things like "You didn't build that."

Well, we — or they, the men — didn't build that if that is the infrastructure, the roads and bridges you were talking about. (Remember the big roads-and-bridges theme of September 2011?) And — I wish I had a searchable text of everything said from the stage last week — did anyone even mention roads and bridges at the Democratic Convention?

112 comments:

It would be interesting for someone to compile a list of new infrastructure works completed with the massive Federal spending of the past few years. Actual new bridges, highways, buildings, levees, etc. I wonder what that list would look like?

Of course liberal pussies would do a lousy job of creating jobs for men who like to build things. They are more likely to mandate sitzspinklers installed in all of our bathrooms to help "spur growth" before they would ever allow another Hoover dam to be built. That's how they roll.

In Obama's world, businessmen build nothing, whereas government are the hardest hard-hats on the planet. So, in his "You didn't build that" speech, he invoked, yet again, the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge. "When we invested in the Hoover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Internet, sending a man to the moon – all those things benefited everybody. And so that's the vision that I want to carry forward.

He certainly carries it forward from one dam speech to another. He was doing his Hoover Dam shtick only last month, and I pointed out that there seemed to be a certain inconsistency between his enthusiasm for federal dam-building and the definitive administration pronouncement on the subject, by Deanna Archuleta, his Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior, in a speech to Democratic environmentalists in Nevada:

What each of the people offering the goods and services just mentioned have in common is that they were recently laid off. Some were collecting unemployment or VA disability, some weren't, but every single one of them found it easier and more profitable to start their own below-ground businesses that try to work within the existing federal and state regulatory frameworks. And, with such an absurd emphasis on "women's jobs" and creating "secure, hostility-free workplaces," most men find it easier on their blood pressure to stay out of corporate America and work by themselves.

So, no, men aren't sitting at home collecting unemployment. They're still working and doing things they find personally edifying like building things. Just because they don't show up where sociologists can find them doesn't mean they don't exist. It's like that old proverb: "If a man works in a forest and doesn't file a 1099, is he still employed?"

Keep in mind what Tippytoes said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste".

This is the Demos' chance to do to white people what they did to blacks in the 50s and 60s. I don't doubt they look at the stats that say 1 in 6 households get a government check and think, "We own them".

I know farmers that each have little patches of gardens that they sell the produce on the roadside. All for much needed cash to see them through the year without the goddamn IRS taking half of it just because they can. Then you see the FDA arresting these farmers for not having the stuff inspected and approved by "Big Daddy". Big government is what the mafia wishes it was.

Here's a question for ya...You ever hear tell of someone getting ill from eating the food from a truck garden? I never have. And yet every day you read in the paper about this food is recalled or that car, etc. But since the government isn't getting their split they go after the truck farmers.

I think Coketown in on to something, that certainly matches my experience living out in California. Lots of people finding work under the table to avoid upsetting any UI they are getting from being laid off or taking early retirement. They would rather work above board but there just aren't any jobs here.

We will pay for the Hoover Dam, in today's trillions, and we will pay for the Golden Gate Bridge, in today's trillion, but we will get neither.All that money (money that originated with tax payers) went into the pockets of democrat donors with their fake start-ups.

Just from the Dr. Helen excerpt that you present, in answer to her closing question, "What do you think?", I think she sounds like a 14 year old asking silly questions.

"Men going Galt?" What kind of nitwit might think that people withering on the vine of unemployment, unable to find work, are committing a conscious ideological act of protest...or because they're "not getting married as often?"

(She needs to rethink her syntax in that last bit. It seems at first as if she's describing a tribe in which the males are serial polygamists, if you will, marrying one, then another and another woman after another, "often.")

When you get to the level of pandering the Democrats have reached with this nitwit who wants the taxpayers to pay for her birth control pills, instead of ponying up her own 10 bucks a month... you gotta wonder...

What's her name? Sandra Fluke?

The girl is so lazy and dependent. What's next?

I foresee the demand for an electric powered prosthesis so that the poor girl doesn't have to do her own humping and grinding of her hips while she screws.

Has anyone ever suggested employment vouchers rather than unemployment, where the government would, instead of an unemployment check, send you a voucher that an employer could redeem to cover part of the cost of employing you to actually do some productive work? That may have some side effects, but I would guess they would be less negative than paying someone to watch TV.

Erika, the men who post on Dr. Helen's blog are just like the women who complain about there not being any good men. They both stink at picking out the good vs the bad in the mating game. The men keep getting played by gold diggers and the women by players/abusers. Somehow they never learn from previous mistakes. I agree - I stopped reading Dr. Helen, too, for the same reason I don't read man-hating women (although in Dr. Helen's case it is her commenters). It depresses me.

They all did; at least I'm >90% certain that Biden and Obama both specifically cited the hoary "roads and bridges" cliche.

This was quite a surprise to hear in such hackneyed terms from the dais, given the thundering amount of wampum spent on the stimulus to date. I mean jeez, if you haven't built some serious road 'n bridge with all that dough, what the fuck are you doing with it then, spending it on government dept. boondoggles in Vegas?

Kids used to have jobs when they were in High School. I don't know about the rest of the country, but the jobs I used to do have been taken over by those who will do the jobs no american will do. That includes throwing newspapers. Working at fast food restaurants. And yes, even picking the crops.

It's not easy to make a transition from not working to working, and we are getting that crop now. What's going to happen when the current crop starts working at 28, 29, or 30 years of age? What kind of workers are they going to be?

Is it the only reason? I don't think so. But it's one of them.

Another is the mechanization of the workplace, and that changes fast. I remember some carpenters working on my fathers house, putting in a den, and these guys would sing to each other as they hammered in the nails. Now it's done faster with a nail gun. And I hear it's much worse for other manufacturing jobs, in which trigonometry is needed to program the computers that do milling, at least for now.

Finally, there is this issue of government spending, and regulation. It makes jobs expensive. For instance, I know a guy who had a construction business, and due to worker's compensation, it was more costly for him to have employees than not. So he fired them all, and works only for himself. That's CA.

Then there are other insanities, like "Renewable Energy," which drives up the cost of doing business, shipping jobs overseas.

One of my friends who was serially married to a variety of men read the Hanna Rosin article in the Times last week about women doing better than men in their marriages. Her take on it was that women were more adaptable and the men were spoiled, religious babies. I pointed out that while both men and women had been laid off in this recession, women for the most part had lost jobs, while men had lost careers. That made it all the more difficult for them to pick up and move on.

On Oct 1, 2008, I had a cabinet shop and deposits for about six months worth of work on my books. By the 10th,all that had evaporated. By Dec...after my landlord had failed to pay the morgtage on the house I had a lease/purchase agreement on, I was evicted...

It wouldn't surprise me in the least. I'm a cabinetmaker in Baltimore, Maryland. There are fewer and fewer shops open right now. More are closing every week.

It took me 3 years to get a job that was remotely close to cabinetry (I built shipping crates for trade show dispslays) and an additional 16 months to find a job in a very small cabinetshop (2 men...it used to have six).

This is the future of light manufacturing? Fuck all, I hope not. Moreover, I've not had an apprentice in 5 years. I'll be 50 in a few weeks...if there are fewer and fewer guys working in cabinetry, what IS the future?

1st, an anonymous website I.D. brings out the tribal in people, but a lot of the negativity is in response to a general cultural dissing that men have been getting for some time. TV and movies have re-purposed the male as a fool, and women as the victims of their stupidity. Then, add to that the political, where women and their votes are treated like they count double. Nobody cares if there is a war on men, or if they feel disrespected or disenfranchised. They are pretty much invisible. There is great concern about women's pay, or their lifestyle choices. A great example is how much talk and concern there is about how women are getting educated or employed even when they are clearly getting the better end of those things now. There was never a shift of concern to the men when or where they became disadvantaged. It's all under the umbrella of us now being equal, except when women don't want us to be.

Part of our frustration is that men are clearly disadvantaged in the complaining. We are taught not to, and even as you read this you are probably thinking "stop whining, dude, be a man".

When men believe women might be listening, and they think they can get away with it, we are just waiting to unload a lot of held-in crap. That's my explanation.

I think women would be surprised at how little men complain about them in private. Attacks on women as a group are almost unheard of in my experience, unless a woman is around to receive the message, and hopefully pass it on.

With "Obamanomics', loss of jobs and just 'burger flipper' jobs, high taxes, lots of others on welfare, politicians spending money like there is no tomorrow, junkets, 'we have to pass it to know what is in it', and all the other BS like Unions getting HUGE benefit packages (just like the Greeks!) and people wonder why men might just 'go Galt'?

Tell you what, I've worked for over 30 years, paid lots of taxes, what you might call a 'pillar of society', and if they lay me off cause the re-elect that stupid Obama, yea I just might go Galt!!!

Shana--exactly, and I get the distinct feeling that she eggs those guys on.

It's true guys; almost all women are whores and golddiggers! If you let your guard down and trust one, sooner or later she'll rip your heart out and you'll wind up in a shitty apartment while she fucks some other guy in the house you bought her and you never see your kids except when you hand that bitch a check! Don't be the fool who buys the cow when it's so easy to get the milk for free!

Yeah, there are women like that out there, sure, not to mention entitled and entirely unappealing harpies like Sandra Fluke, Amanda Marcotte and Hannah Rosin--but can we please remember, just for a little while, that most of us are decent women married to decent men and raising decent families?

Bago, I'm not thinking 'stop whining' at all. Really! I'm right there with you on the feminization of the culture and the general nasty attitude toward men. I see it too, and am horrified by it, and counter it when I can. I also sympathize with the backlash.

I just think that encouraging men to marinate in all that anger and bitterness because SOME women act and think that way is unfortunate and harmful. Likewise, telling young men to NEVER EVER EVER consider marriage and a family because SHE'LL FUCK UP YOUR LIFE, DUDE is really awful advice.

No Country for Burly Men: http://www.weeklystandard.com/author/christina-hoff-sommers

"Christina Romer, the highly regarded economist President Obama chose to chair his Council of Economic Advisers, would later say of her entrance on the political stage, "The very first email I got . . . was from a women's group saying 'We don't want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men."

Stimulus Not Just for Burly Men:http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17327.html

"Romer says the first e-mail she got when she was announced for the job came from a women’s group saying, “‘We don’t want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men,' and you know, that’s been in the back of my mind as I looked at this and thought about this."

Murray points out that prime-age men are much more than three times as likely to be out of the labor force if they are unmarried. He also found that these men were spending much more of their time on leisure activities.

So, as I ponder this data, I wonder if men are going Galt, staying home and collecting unemployment or no longer need jobs because they don’t get married as often? Or is it that they just can’t get a job because the industries they work in are no longer hiring? Could the Obama administration also be part of the problem, focusing only on women’s jobs and not on those of men? Or a combination of these. What do you think?

I think that the Instawife is trying to combine a couple of things here. I would suggest that the single males are doing what they are doing because they can get their sex outside marriage, and they have nothing to work for, since so many women are either taking care of themselves or having government do so. Big motivational difference between working to take care of wife and children, and working to take care of women and children you will never meet.

But, this is different from the males who are dropping out of the formal work force, for one reason or another, during the Obama recession. This some extent is the "going Galt". If you can take care of your family better by going at least partially underground, why not do so, in these trying economic times? It doesn't help when the predominant liberal meme right now is that "You Didn't Build That".

"I just think that encouraging men to marinate in all that anger and bitterness because SOME women act and think that way is unfortunate and harmful. Likewise, telling young men to NEVER EVER EVER consider marriage and a family because SHE'LL FUCK UP YOUR LIFE, DUDE is really awful advice. "

I think women would be surprised at how little men complain about them in private

I'm glad to hear that, and that's been my experience too; really, in my world, women genuinely like and respect men, and vice versa. Which is why I don't care to hang out in Dr. Helen Land where many of her commenters are not of that persuasion.

Sorry, but this "going Galt" mancession talk is just horseshit. In the last six months, I've bought the following goods/services under the table and beyond the scope of the IRS:

But, that is just it - Going Galt is not refusing to work, just refusing to work, or minimizing work, but rather, minimizing or refusing to work for the government and the greater society. Why pay taxes, when the money is going to cronies, contributors, and families of politicians, and to the Julias of this country? The country isn't better for your doing so, and neither are you. It just enables bad behavior on the part of those politicians and the Julias that sell their votes for dependency.

And, your making that point just makes you look silly. Of course it is fiction, but so is Julia. But both represent differing views of reality. Heck, Obamanomics is fiction. But we can still discuss it.

"Boggles the brain that "REDUCE MY TAXES" isn't a battle cry from each and every American who pays taxes!"

Why? Can you afford to pay out of your own pocket for the roads, highways and bridges you drive on? Or for private security and fire protection services to replace the tax-payer funded police and firefighting forces in your town? You might be able to afford to send your children to private schools, but most people cannot. Of course, our taxes pay for many more things than this.

As it is, our taxes aren't particularly high. As tax revenues drop, our lives will become meaner and more deprived.

If you want to return to a pre-industrial society, why don't you advocate that we just eliminate all taxes? Of course, even pre-industrial societies had tax collectors. I guess you just want us to return to a state of nature. free of government altogether, hunkering cold, naked and isolated in the dark, living short, brutish lives.

I see the "Going Galt" meme still has some traction. Don't you guys realize that most Americans don't read, and most have no idea who John Galt is, (or Ayn Rand, for that matter). Making assumptions--or speculations--about the behavior of others based on your own narrow dogmas is not going to tell you much about the world outside yourself.

We can just as easily assume that all those presumably lowlife parasites living on the dole are "going Galt." Doesn't that elevate them from the scum they're seen to be to the ranks of heroic supermen and women? After all, if, rather than contributing their labor (and taxes) to the OOG, (Oppressive Occupying Government), they TAKE from it as much in public funds as possible, aren't they contributing to the more rapid starving of government, such that it finally collapses entirely? Aren't they, really, an army not just of John Galts but of Grover Norquists?

I don't think most men ever got married to get sex. It's companionship and love that they wanted then, and they still do. The change has been divorce. Men, no longer can count on getting those things though marriage. A woman knows that she is now free to change her mind at will.

Consequently, marriage is just a bad deal for men now. That's all. A clear thinking man has a hard time justifying the cost and risks for the benefits. We all know too many men who really regret at least their first marriage, and with horror stories attached.

With equality and extensive public safety nets, women, likewise, have a hard time justifying staying married.

The institution just isn't what it once was. We changed it and now it doesn't reliably do what it did for either sex.

It's similar to how employment has changed, where neither party can expect the long term commitment it once could from the other.

Thankfully, in both cases, if you pick carefully and do your part, it can be old school again. I found the perfect job, but compatible women are more elusive in today's economy.

I seem to recall this issue came up before, and there was evidence *some* people in his party weren't hip on Obama ostensibly sending stimulus money toward projects likely to employ men.

Not that there were many to begin with, it turns out.

There isn't much question in my mind that part of the progressive agenda is to "elevate" women partly by finding ways to put men down. Especially in their "traditional" role as the ones who earn money to support the household.

"There isn't much question in my mind that part of the progressive agenda is to 'elevate' women partly by finding ways to put men down. Especially in their 'traditional' role as the ones who earn money to support the household."

Gee, Ricky, I really think you have more question in your mind about the matter.

Thankfully, in both cases, if you pick carefully and do your part, it can be old school again

In other words, choose carefully and seek to serve rather than to be served. This happens to be, in a nutshell, what our church teaches about marriage. Worked for me and my husband; hopefully it will work for our children. We have four of them to marry off!

Incidentally, part of your problem is that you live in California. Come to Texas and your chances of finding women who are honest, genuine, down to earth, trustworthy and giving will dramatically improve.

Erika said..."In other words, choose carefully and seek to serve rather than to be served. This happens to be, in a nutshell, what our church teaches about marriage. Worked for me and my husband; hopefully it will work for our children. We have four of them to marry off!

Incidentally, part of your problem is that you live in California. Come to Texas and your chances of finding women who are honest, genuine, down to earth, trustworthy and giving will dramatically improve."

This country's infrastructure is a looming disaster, and who you going to call when your roof leaks or your pipes burst.

Problem there is that the Dems have diverted so much money elsewhere that there is little left. Sure, the "Stimulus" was sold as building infrastructure. But less than maybe 10% was actually spent that way. And, has been noted, Obama recognized a trillion or so dollar too late, that there is no such thing as shovel ready any more (more thanks to the Dems). But, with so much money diverted to "Green Energy", Cash for Clunkers, etc., little was left anyway.

The "going Galt" thing is absurd. It's a weird, intellectual conceit that believes anyone would actually choose not to work as a form of protest. I've a brother-in-law who refused to work because he's white trash and lazy as hell.

My experience is that most men want to work. They like to work. They want to be solving problems. Now, they may not like their bosses (dealing with bureaucracy is my demon) but they still enjoying feeling like they are contributing.

" Can you afford to pay out of your own pocket for the roads, highways and bridges you drive on?"

Yes, but we can't afford to pay for free birth control, abortions, health care, food stamps, retirement benefits, cash for clunkers, subsidizing industries that that can't support themselves, huge worthless bureaucracies full of well paid and benefited people taking lavish vacations and having parties on our tab, and all the rest.

It's amazing how leftist never seem to end up spending money on the things they say they will. It's Fen's law again.

Erika, I'll send out my Scientology crew to interview some Texas women to determine their acceptability. They will go through an extensive screening process. I'm not famous or important, but just in case I do something terrible or wonderful, she will need to be ready to handle the fame.

And, your making that point just makes you look silly. Of course it is fiction, but so is Julia. But both represent differing views of reality. Heck, Obamanomics is fiction. But we can still discuss it."

It's amusing that garage has no concept of the point and Cook thinks that taxes are wonderful and the environmentalist agenda has nothing to do with the left's policies.

Does anyone think the Golden Gate Bridge could be built today ?

As far as Hoover Dam goes, San Francisco politicians are agitating to blow up the Hetch Hetchy dam which supplies all their water.

And then there is this:

" Can you afford to pay out of your own pocket for the roads, highways and bridges you drive on?"

There have been no new public highways built in California since Jerry Brown stopped it and told us "small is beautiful" in the 70s. What we have instead is a series of toll roads which we do pay for out of our pockets.

" Perhaps your municipality doesn't have the tax revenues to afford to fix the pothole."

Perhaps they do, but are forced to spend it instead on unsustainable public employee pension costs. Or perhaps they choose to spend our revenue inefficiently, hiring cronies or expensive union labor. Or perhaps they direct the revenue to other more personally and politically advantageous programs, because they don't really care about doing their jobs properly.

My single son is 27 years old, working as a Millwright Journeyman, belongs to a union, and is now buying his first home, he works full time hours in this bad economy, go figure. he's feathering the nest for his future wife. He was raised by a liberal woman, go figure. Don't blame women for your failures guys.

"As tax revenues drop, our lives will become meaner and more deprived."

Lower tax rates often result in more tax revenue. I don't understand why any competent government would avoid taking advantage of this.

But tax revenue doesn't pay for our lives. Our earnings and investments pay for our lives. Taxes deprive us of those earnings. If they're spent properly they can provide useful benefits. If not, they're wasted and we're all poorer for it.

Jack Wayne, I think you may be wrong, he works more hours than ever, the old guys are retiring and dying off, and he is one of a few skilled tradesman. In the Milwaukee area, it appears that there may be bit of an economic recovery, well in his field anyway.

"'Can you afford to pay out of your own pocket for the roads, highways and bridges you drive on?'

"Is this a serious question? Of course, the answer is a resounding yes."

Oh, you're personally wealthy enough to pay for the construction and maintenance of all roadways and bridges that you must cross to go from your home to wherever else you travel to? You must be exceedingly wealthy. Most of us aren't, so we must rely on government construction of our networks of roads, highways and bridges.

"Just where do you think the government gets its money?"

From tax revenues. From we, the people. Not from you, the individual.

I think you need to think a bit more carefully about the nature of my rhetorical question before you attempt to answer it.

Cook - the issue isn't whether we should have government funded infrastructure. It's how much, how is it funded, how do we keep the union cronies OUT of it and so on. But you want to do things the old FDR way.

"Cook - the issue isn't whether we should have government funded infrastructure."

If the right maintains that the solution to every problem is to cut taxes, then it certainly is the issue, as, without any (or even adequate) tax revenues, the government cannot build or maintain public infrastructure.

This shows your fundamental misunderstanding of the way the world works. I am not personally wealthy enough to pay for and stock a Home Depot building either. And shockingly, the government doesn't build and stock those either. Yet, shockingly I know, there are a half dozen within a 10 mile radius of my house. I can't afford to personally pay for the billions of houses, cars, lights, TVs, etc. that exist in this world either, but somehow they exist, right?

Your fundamental misunderstanding is that all money the government gets comes from the private sector. Roads and bridges and all of these things would exist even if the government didn't build them. The main difference is that they would be built with a minimum of waste and we wouldn't have bridges to nowhere.

My single son is 27 years old..., belongs to a union.... He was raised by a liberal woman, go figure.

This isn't surprising at all that a liberal woman would raise a son that would use the police state to prevent others from entering his profession and to transfer money from taxpayers into his own pocket. It's not surprising at all that liberal women teach their children to stand on the necks of others believing that holding others back is equivalent to getting ahead.

If the right maintains that the solution to every problem is to cut taxes, then it certainly is the issue, as, without any (or even adequate) tax revenues, the government cannot build or maintain public infrastructure.

Who are these hordes of right-wingers arguing against taxes for general infrastructure that can be justified like highways, oil pipelines, etc... Of course we are against your boondoggles(high speed rail, wind farms, etc..)

Cook - the problem is that your side has already decided that whatever you want to spend money on is a HOLY CAUSE and you will NOT debate with anyone about it.

Ken, seriously? The state is stopping others from entering the trades? My son entered an apprentiship program by passing a test at our county tech college. He is employed by a private rim, how is he Putting taxpayers money in his pocket? He pays taxes on the income he earns being employed in a private corporation.

Also Ken, I raised a daughter who is a conservative, married to a Capitalist, and my son in law thinks I'm great, even tough I'm a liberal, go figure, lol.

Cook says: "Oh, you're personally wealthy enough to pay for the construction and maintenance of all roadways and bridges that you must cross to go from your home to wherever else you travel to? You must be exceedingly wealthy. Most of us aren't, so we must rely on government construction of our networks of roads, highways and bridges."

Allie Oop, it is an indication of how successful has been the pernicious anti-labor propaganda of the wealthy elites than that so many working people see unions as malevolent or useless, rather than responsible for many of the benefits working people take for granted today.

They're happy serfs, all too ready to promote the cause of their masters.

"Who are these hordes of right-wingers arguing against taxes for general infrastructure that can be justified like highways, oil pipelines, etc... Of course we are against your boondoggles(high speed rail, wind farms, etc..)"

By default, all those who insist that taxes must always be cut, and must never be raised. This seems to be the big applause line required of any politician trying to win Republican votes. The Grover Norquist Republicans, if you will, or, more succinctly, the Republicans.

"Cook - the problem is that your side has already decided that whatever you want to spend money on is a HOLY CAUSE and you will NOT debate with anyone about it."

Um...no. Debate about how taxes are to spent is inherent in the political process, and is part of the reason for the political process. However, to insist that no matter what happens, taxes can never be raised (and should usually be cut) is not to even engage with reality.

Robert Cook, if not for the union, my son wouldn't have had health insurance during the four years it took to become a journeyman. We were very relieved that he had access to healthcare, he needed it a couple of times during those four years. Also he has a great retirement plan through the union. His company seems to be doing well and provides him with full time hours, plus overtime.

IIRC, the deal was that its not 1940. There aren't all that many male citizens that can go straight from unemployment to building infrastructure. There are plenty of illegals who can. Unions get involved, etc. That was one reason why it was dropped.

I understand why unions exist, but not all unions actually protect their workers. My son-in-law got fired for taking a break to stop himself from vomiting due to illness and the union did absolutely nothing. Needless to say, he lost all respect for unions.

The National Association of Manufacturers (and the state associations too) are saying that there's a skills shortage for skilled trades in manufacturing. I see that as true. The mfrs are traveling hours to come interview our graduating students from the tech programs. These aren't unskilled line people. And they are making gooooood money.

Joe said: "The "going Galt" thing is absurd. It's a weird, intellectual conceit that believes anyone would actually choose not to work as a form of protest. I've a brother-in-law who refused to work because he's white trash and lazy as hell.

My experience is that most men want to work. They like to work. They want to be solving problems. Now, they may not like their bosses (dealing with bureaucracy is my demon) but they still enjoying feeling like they are contributing."

No problem Joe... ever here of the underground economy? Go Galt and if you work... work that way, barter only.

There are some guys who make it their lifestyle to live off a welfare mom (whether or not the kids are hers).

If you are married, the law presumes your wife's children are yours (conceived and born during the marriage) whether that's true or not. If she's a hoor, you could end up paying child support for children that aren't even yours.

Outside of marriage, you might pay child support anyway, but only for your own children as proven by a DNA test.

A guy who never wants to pay child support or have kids should get a vasectomy. Then he can go among the welfare moms like a bee from flower to flower. State subsidized prostitution, if you think about it.

The entire idea of "going Galt" is that a super-rich railroad tycoon could establish himself an alternate reality outside the purview of the USA government. That's the fantastical part, because we know DC would never tolerate that. Galt was never about giving up work, but about giving up on the USA.

The infrastructure argument is the most cynical thing imaginable. Infrastructure is a legitimate function of government and we know paying taxes for that is required so that everyone can benefit. What is not a legitimate function of government is providing people with a living. I'm more than happy to pay for infrastructure. I'm not all that happy about paying the expenses of people who won't work. I don't want to pay for their birth control or their drug habit either. I'm funny that way. So, take all the money you need from my taxes to build roads and bridges, but tell the lazy and ignorant to get out there and use them to better their own lives. Then quit trying to use all this phony talk of "roads" to make me and my grandchildren pay.

If you really want to see 'going Galt' in the real world just go to Southern Europe where a surprisingly large number of people work off the books, tax free. That is why growth in those countries is so difficult. They have to find the sweet spot between making as much as they can without coming under the government's radar. I remember many years ago when I travelled a lot to Italy on business that Naples was the glove export center of the country yet there was hardly any legally registered glove factories. In France virtually every small business has seven or less employees, otherwise they have to comply with onerous regulations. So the business is kept under the radar and the owners if successful keep creating new legal entities that employ seven less to avoid the burden. Not a very efficient way to grow the economy.

RC why do you always make the same silly argument? First infrastructure is for the most part paid for with local taxes not federal. Second roads and bridges are paid for by car and fuel taxes and tolls and so are bridges. Mass transit is also funded by those sources, money diverted by those who pay to those who don't. As for federal spending, infrastructure is way below entitlement spending, so let cut taxes and stop pissing away money on 'entitlement's' and spend the remaining money on things that benefit the actual taxpayers like infrastructure.

The thing about going Gault is not about completely dropping out and going on the dole, it's about purposefully underperforming, just flipping hamburgers because you like to and because it's problem free, still productive, but unwilling to to give full commitment to uncertain and socially beneficial enterprises, nor to take any risks. Basically, saying, "stick it, will you have fries with that? What color flower would you like on your hummingbird feeder tube?"

"I understand why unions exist, but not all unions actually protect their workers. My son-in-law got fired for taking a break to stop himself from vomiting due to illness and the union did absolutely nothing. Needless to say, he lost all respect for unions."

Well, of course. A union is not a magical thing, like a unicorn, but an organization of people joined together to serve a purpose of mutual benefit to its membership. As with any other organizations of people that accrue a degree of power and financial wherewithal, unions are subject to being corrupted, or of taking their eyes off the ball, namely, the protection and benefit of its members. (One way they go wrong is by getting too cozy with management; highly-paid decision makers, whether in corporate management or union management, tend to become more like each other than they are like those below them.)

This is a potential danger that is inherent and omnipresent when any two or more people gather together to work in common, from unions to corporations, to governments.

This doesn't discredit the idea or utility (or necessity) of such institutions, but merely highlights the perennial truth that diligent oversight and prompt corrective measures to divergence from the primary mission are always necessary components in any organization.

It's less about building, than being productive. Most men do not feel good about resigning themselves to the involuntary exploitation (i.e. redistributive change) of others. It diminishes their stature and robs them of their dignity. However, enterprise to "promote the general Welfare" seems to be the exception.

So, Obama is partially right, but mostly wrong. His policies have been contributors to the progressive corruption of individuals and culture; and, that does not consider the covert, punitive tax that he has levied upon every America, nations which denominate their external debt in dollars or peg their currency to the dollar, through his massive deficit spending. Egypt was not the exception. Although, after Americans, they were one of his first victims.